Ukraine's Underground Army of Civilians

KIEV, Ukraine — Andriy picks me up in a taxi on the corner of Kiev's Maidan square, the site of the protests that overthrew former president Viktor Yanukovych earlier this year. Dressed in a dark suit, he peppers his speech with corporate lingo as he explains what we are about to see.

After driving for about 30 minutes, we pull up on a quiet side street overflowing with shrubbery. We get out and walk along a path to a large house, and a young girl in her early twenties with dreadlocked hair pulled back in a mottled Samurai knot opens the door and invites us in.

After walking through a messy hallway, I enter a large living area that is like a pastiche of Ukraine itself, where the civilian and military intermingle happily. In here, journalists, IT consultants and musicians all pack and load boxes. Night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests lie on a dinner table, while sniper camouflage is draped over chairs and, at one point, on a suit of armor in the corner of the room.

There is a military air to the way things work here. Orders are shouted — "Ten vests for 25th Paratrooper division!" "Twenty sets of boots for 1st Division National Guard" — as the equipment is packed into boxes.

Tonight, a delivery is going out to 95th and 25th paratrooper divisions and the 1st division National Guard in the eastern town of Sloviansk, the scene of intense fighting over the last month.

“I’m just an data programmer,” a bearded man tells me as he helps load the car. “Six months ago, I’d never have dreamt I’d be doing this.” His friend, a young guy with a mullet, chimes in: “None of us did.”

The covert civilians who help Ukraine's troops

Andriy and the people working out of this home are part of EuroMaydanArmy, a Facebook group that raises money to supply Ukrainian troops fighting against pro-Russian rebels with the tools they need.

But this Facebook group figured out quickly that, by working together, they can do far more than purchase equipment for the military. They also work for the people living in the shadows of Ukraine’s crisis.

After Crimea’s annexation in March, the group helped move an entire division of 200 soldiers from the area because the Ministry of Defense (MOD) couldn’t arrange contracts with delivery companies quickly enough before the border closed.

Now, EuroMaydanArmy has switched to evacuating families from the east, using social media to find refugees temporary apartments and employment. The team arranges everything from buying train tickets to sending cars to collect refugees.

In every eastern city, EuroMaydanArmy has a coordinator and a local Facebook group that works with the troops on the ground.

“Our guys are unique people,” Anna, one of EuroMaydanArmy's founders, told me. “They work covertly inside places like Kramatorosk and Luhansk supplying medicine and food. Food is a common request — the army is often surrounded and they don’t have ready access to it.”

When I interviewed Anna in a restaurant in a Kiev a few weeks ago, her team was in the eastern city of Mariopul working on a request for medical help for some wounded soldiers. At that time, they were on a mission to quickly raise $422,295 for body-armor and helmets.

"Facebook is the main tool I use because there is an entire community on there who can find solutions," Anna said. "People always know other people who can provide what we need.”

Anna's work has been recognized by the Ukrainian government, and she regularly liaises with the MOD, the Ministry of the Interior and police. But unlike traditional government entities, everything works in real time for Anna's group. That is absolutely vital for keeping up with developments on the battlefield, which is what much of the east has become.

A night ride to the embattled east

Sloviansk is currently under the control of pro-Russian separatists, so getting the supplies there tonight will be tricky.

Two cars were scheduled to go, but one of the drivers pulled out, claiming it was too dangerous to travel. So Oleksandr, a tall man in his mid-twenties will make the trip alone. He tells me that he will liaise with the group’s army contacts, who will tell him where all the separatist checkpoints are.

“We generally arrange to meet in a safe place near Sloviansk; I drive the stuff there and hand it over. Simple.” Oleksandr says, showing me his phone with them all marked out on Google Maps.

Sometimes, however, this isn’t possible, and separatist checkpoints have to be crossed. For these kinds of jobs, the group uses "Viktor," a specialist who knows this type of work inside and out.

Among the many techniques he uses to outwit the separatists are the various sets of license plates he keeps in his vehicle. When he suspects that he's going to hit a pro-Russia checkpoint, he switches his Kiev plates for local ones. He has various other methods of getting through, but I am told not to divulge them.

“If you don’t feed your own army, you will feed the invaders’ army,” says Diana, a journalist in her 40s who coordinates the team’s efforts on the ground as we sit in the kitchen drinking tea.

She is responsible for liaising with the military and, critically, for deciding who gets what when. “We are inundated with requests,” she tells me. “It is a matter of prioritizing; I have military consultants who advise me and decide what the most pressing cases are.”

But Diana says that's the strength of an organization like EuroMaydanArmy, which has the ability to fill requests faster than the government.

“We can move very quickly. We are not a bureaucracy bound by interminable regulations," she says before pausing and staring right at me.

“The truth is, in our country the state is not the government, it’s the people."

David Patrikarakos is the author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, a Poynter Fellow in journalism at Yale University, and Associate Fellow, School of Iranian Studies, at the University of St Andrews. You can follow him on Twitter at @dpa...More

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